20 years since 7.7 in London

Where did those 20 years go? 

Today is the 20th anniversary of the 7.7 bombings, a series of terrorist attacks that hit London's public transport lifeline, the Tube, killing 52 and injuring 770 innocent, average Londoners and visitors. A horrible day for London, especially as the people killed had nothing to do with the world's fundamental problems.

Every Londoner has their own story of what happened to them on that fateful day, so primarily for the sake of keeping a record of what happened as memory of the day withers away, here's mine.

At the time, I was living in Leytonstone in the eastern end of London and worked in a subtitling company near Holborn. My commute was usually around 30 minutes door-to-door, thanks to the zippy Central Line. I also had a fortunate workday of 11 am to 7 pm, so I usually would avoid the heavy crowds of rush hour (7:30-8:30 am).

The day before London had been awarded hosting the 2012 Olympics. Having experienced the joy of the 2000 Olympics in Australia, this was quite a big victory for the city. We honestly thought that good things were on their way. So the city was on a high.

Having a late start time meant that most mornings I could fit in going to a gym nearby to work. And that was the plan for 7 July in that I would leave home at around 8:30 am. But at the last minute I decided that I'd skip the gym that morning, but I'd still pop into work a little earlier than usual.

Now, I should point out that I wouldn't watch morning TV or go onto the internet to check the news (this was before smartphones), so I was blissfully unaware of what was happening a few kilometres away.

Around 9:30 am I decided to head off. A couple of minutes, around the corner, I had Leytonstone Tube Station in eyesight, but there were giant crowds of people milling outside. "No, not again" I immediately thought to myself. Two days earlier I had been greeted with this exact same scene and at around the same time of the day. What had happened then was a train had been stuck at Marble Arch, effectively bringing the whole Central Line to a halt. I assumed that the same thing occurred then. It is, after all, the London Tube. Things happen. So without second thought, my trusted Plan B for getting into town came into immediate effect. That involved walking for about 10 minutes to Leytonstone High Street station for the "Hopper" line (as it was locally known affectionally), i.e. the Barking-Gospel Oak train (now the Suffragette Line) to take me to Blackhorse Road station so as to change to the Victoria line into central London. If the times are right, it can be done very quickly. Lucky for me, a train was about to arrive as soon as I arrived at the station.

All was going well and the general mood was that it was your average day in London. It was now 10 am, so I had plenty of time to get to work. The train made it two stations to Walthamstow Queens Road... and... that's where we were held. Waiting... waiting... waiting. Yes, we just sat there for what seemed a long time. Normally there would be some sort of announcement but there was none. After a few minutes of suspense that felt like hours, I saw the train engineers on the platform. That wasn't a good sign as I had never seen that before. They quickly reboarded the train, soon after which the long-awaited announcement was made to explain why we were not moving – a major incident had occurred at Liverpool Street, which most likely involved fatalities. Yipes! What had happened?

Instincts came into play and so the first thing I thought is that I better inform my parents in Australia that I'm OK. I know what's it like to hear news about some major event happening on the other side of the world. With the dramatic beat-up that comes with reporting, it's only natural that people will think the worst. Hey, I had been in Canada when 9/11 occurred, but it didn't occur to Aussies that being Vancouver, thousands of kilometres from New York on the other side of North America, would make me not directly affected of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers (it did affect my flights to London a week later though). So the reassuring text message was sent to mother and father. That was a relief, and good timing, as things turned out.

Despite the extraordinary circumstances that were unfolding at the time, I and most of the Londoners around me were quite calm. For many of them, the IRA bombing campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s, when whole sections of central London would suddenly be closed due to a suspicious item in a rubbish bin (that's why there weren't bins for years in central London) was a recent yet regular occurrence. So of course, it had to be then when my second cousin Vasko called me from Italy. Vasko, let's just say, is a larger-than-life character, one for the hyperbole and never for keeping things logical and serene. "Are you alive?" he screamed exasperatedly over the phone. Before I could answer to reassure him that I'm fine, he was barked orders at me. "Get off the train! You're gonna die! Catch a taxi". That last one was a bit rich of him. I asked him whether he'd pay the exorbitant fare for the taxi. So I had to use my diplomatic skills to calm him down, which just didn't happen. In the end, I did that typical Balkan thing of saying 'yes' to everything he said just to shut him up and then I used the excuse that the line was falling out to get off the phone. Phew! Thanks Vasko for nothing!

Immediately after, all network connections were cut off. No-one can call or text (this was the pre-smartphone era) to find out the whereabouts of others, so plenty of uncertainty about.

The train moves to Blackhorse Road station to await further instructions. We're told that all of the tube lines have been cancelled but buses are still running. OK, there goes Plan B, so it'll have to be Plan C then. Provided that the train continues operating, I'll stay on the train all the way to its terminus at Gospel Oak and from there I can get on the C2 bus, which starts from the area, so it won't be packed with Tube refugees, and will take me into central London. Sorted!

All fine. Made it to Gospel Oak, so now to the bus stop to catch that C2 bus. It was obvious at the stop that many who were waiting would have been catching the Northern Line nearby, which was closed like all other lines. Sitting on the uncomfortable bench typical of London bus stops was an old woman, who suddenly fell and was lying on the floor. It appeared that she had a mild stroke. Fortunately, two women also waiting for the bus happened to be nurses and immediately took control of the situation. We asked whether we should call an ambulance, but they rightfully said that all the ambulances would have been sent to terror attack sites, so it would be better to hail a cab. A C2 bus then turned up. I offered to stay and help, but the two nurses said that they'll be fine and graciously thanked me for offering to stay.

It's now approaching 11 am and I'm on the upper deck of a London bus. To have some idea of what's happening, I decided it's best that I listen to BBC London 94.9 (as BBC Radio London was called at the time). Danny Baker was hosting his morning show and his boisterous presentation style and stream of consciousness somewhat reflected the chaotic, confusing and uncertain nature of that day. He was relaying loads of what ended up being exaggerated, rumoured reports of hundreds dead, but when there's an information vacuum, such extremes often fill the void. Word then started coming out that a series of buses had been bombed in Tavistock Square, which was located no far away from where I work. Then more reports that more buses had exploded. But I was on a bus! What should I do? Then Danny Baker made the quip that if anyone is on a bus right now, they should get off. OK, this was serious. It was yet another sudden moment when just before entering the centre of Camden Town, the bus driver announced that the bus could not go further as a 'ring of steel' has been set up restricting vehicles of any type passing across Euston Road into the West End. That's it, I was off the bus.

It's about 11:20 am now and I am still determined to make it to work. Maybe as a coping mechanism to not think too deeply about what had just happened, mixed with a misguided sense of blind loyalty, by this time I can't think of anything else but getting to the office. I'm heading down Bayham Street in Camden and I see that all the pubs are full with people spilling out onto the street. Everyone is in a state of disbelief with a pint in hand. No-one will be working today. Still, I must get to work! I'm thinking also of how will I get home from work, so I'm psyching myself of an epic walk home taking hours. Hey, it's something I've managed before... once.

I pass the corner and see that there are police blocking the streets. Still, I press on. Must get to work! The next street should be fine and they'll let me pass Euston Road, I reassure myself. It's become my mantra. As I'm lost in my thoughts, a complete stranger on the street outside yet another full pub shouts out to me: "Don't bother, mate. It's all closed". I ignore him and push on. I must get to work!

I reach a barrier manned by police who start shouting out 'Sorry, it's all closed'. I try to reason with them saying I need to go to work, but I'm the one who's not reasoning with reality here. It's then when I finally conceded defeat – I'm not going to work. Done!

I try calling work but the phone system is still down. Now I have to work out how to get home. Will I have to do that marathon walk then? That's 13 kilometres minimum there. OK, how about this? Perhaps the train I took to Gospel Oak is still operating. That'll get me home. So I decide to give it a go.

Too scared to catch the bus, it then took me 30 minutes of sprint walking to get me back to Gospel Oak. As I was approaching the station, I was hoping that the train was still running as it appeared all of London's public transport had stopped.

I get to the station and there are railway staff standing out front. Oh no, that's not good. I go straight up to them and ask "is anything running?".
- "No, it's all closed"
- "Even the line to Barking?"
- "Oh no, that's running still. If you run now, you'll just catch it."

Relieved at my superb luck, I sprinted to the platform and just got on the train to Barking in the nick of time. Hooray! I'm heading home and have saved myself a huge walk.

The train trip back was delightfully uneventful. I got off at Leytonstone High Street and sprinted home. I got inside, turned on the TV for the non-stop live coverage on the BBC, called work to say that I couldn't make it (landlines were still operating), and then called Australia to have a more substantial talk with my parents to reassure them that I'm all fine. It was just 12:45 pm by the time I got home, so what a jam-packed three hours I just had.

It turned out that only myself and one other work colleague who didn't make it in that day to work. We were deducted four hours of our accrued extra time to cover, which we thought was rude and unfair, considering it wasn't like we didn't try to get into work, and the whole situation was out of our control. I mean, we just had to deal with a terrorist attack! Still, our other colleagues said that it was better not making it in as it was near impossible to get home that evening anyway.

When the details came out about the exact times and locations of the attacks that day, I calculated that had I been going into the gym that day as planned, I would have been around Liverpool Street Station on the Central Line close to when the first bomb went off at 8:49 am on the Circle Line between Liverpool Street and Aldgate East stations. Good move then that my laziness prevented me going to the gym!

The following day, when going into work on the Central Line, going into the tunnel after Stratford was actually quite frightening. Who's to say that there wouldn't be any more bombings? But all was well in the end. I got off at Holborn and was fine.

A week later at midday, all of central London came out for a minute's silence for the victims of the bombings. Seeing the huge crowds of people streaming out of the office buildings in Holborn surely put it into perspective how many people are in central London during the day. Far more than what I expected. As we were all standing there in silence, there were actually two people, tourists most likely, who continued on walking totally oblivious to what was actually happening. Don't ask me why. I mean, in situations like that, wouldn't you read the room and too stand there? Weird!

Here's the story of an old high school friend of mine, David Moore. He posted this on the 10th anniversary...

"I remember spending 10 minutes trying to get onto the mobile network, to tell my mum and dad in Australia, and my fiancee in Beckenham, that I wasn't on any of the affected tubes and not to worry.

I remember half a dozen good friends all around London all hooking up on email to confirm they were fine; two of them had been on tubes that had been shut down because of the explosions, and one had been at work a block away and heard one of the blasts.

I remember - as always - the uncertainty. The first report was "an electrical fire at a substation," do you remember that? The trickled details through the day; the horrific death of the tourist on the tube and all the confusion around that.

But what I remember most was standing on a nearly-abandoned train platform at Blackfriars at 5.30 that afternoon (we'd been allowed to go home if we wanted, but I stayed and worked; not like anything else was going to happen), waiting for one of the infrequent, unreliable trains running in the aftermath of the explosions, and the fella just up from me was grumbling about "typical bloody trains, right?"

I loved that. World turned upside-down, dozens of deaths, fear, uncertainty. In any other country there'd be people in the streets clenching fists, swearing to "never forget." UK? Grumbling that the trains are late. It was utterly, utterly wonderful."

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Much was said at the time that London would never forget what happened on 7 July 2005. However, 20 years after these tragic events, it seems that London would prefer to leave it in the past and forget about it. Fine, we shouldn't dwell but we should commemorate. For when we forget, we risk for events like this to happen again. Plus, we must the memory of the 52 innocent people alive, for they did not deserve in any way to have their lives taken away like this. Respect for those who are no longer with us and let's truly not forget!